The Fault in My Reading

I do wonder if I didn't enjoy "The Fault in Our Stars," by John Green, as much as others did because of my own history. It just so happens that my ex-boyfriend also had osteosarcoma as a teenager, also was something of a basketball hotshot before that, also was pretty pissed at people who spouted Bible verses and cross-stitched encouragements and all this well-meaning crap, also wanted to leave a mark beyond being a "professional sick person," and even won a local literary award for saying so.

(I also have an uncle on what I guess would be the other side of the living-with-cancer spectrum, the side that's had cancer in three different places, blogs about the chemo battle, and runs marathons to raise money for a cure.)

That's not to brag, really, but just to say that a lot of Hazel Grace and Augustus's frustrations are things I've heard before from someone who's been there and back: Hazel's worry that after her death, "they'd have nothing to say about me except that I fought heroically, as if the only thing I'd ever done was Have Cancer," has a sentiment I've heard expressed quite a bit. So, a lot of the time, reading this book was like staring into pitch-black night with someone you don't really talk to anymore and making that long and awkward silence as long, awkward, and maybe even painful as possible.

I don't know. I guess I can't accept this book based on the recommendation that it's an "alternative" look at life with cancer because it's been the most pragmatic and maybe even best way to look at it for a while now. I also didn't cry at the parts where you're "supposed" to cry, because either I'm a cold-hearted cynic, or, to borrow from John Irving, we are all of us terminal cases — not just the kids with cancer. If I felt sad, it was because someone's friend and child was suffering, not that someone's friend and child was suffering from cancer.

Beyond that, though, the male protagonist Augustus — whose similarities to Martin end above — was right out of my teenage daydreams and therefore unbelievable and sometimes even cheesy. Hazel, on the other hand, was a character I could get behind, and I loved how she (and, okay, Augustus too) was just darkly hilarious and sharp. Despite my cynicism, if you'd call it that, I did laugh out loud at a couple parts.

Perhaps what kept me from enjoying the book more was the constant self-check: if I find this book "inspirational," and go on to say so, I might only be just as misguided as the same people who find the cross-stitched encouragements "inspirational" and thereby fail at the actual empathy that people like Hazel and Augustus — people in general, really — really want.

I guess if there's anything I'd get out of this book, it's Hazel's idea about infinities being shorter or longer, but still infinite (actually, this is mathematically wrong; also, this link is a quote spoiler). It touches on the same "we are all terminal cases," "we all complete," "you got a lifetime; no more, no less," "death from above's still a death" idea that I think would improve relationships if more people had it. Having cancer does not make your life any more precious and special than that of a 120-year-old woman with two dozen grandkids. Your life is special because it is your life.

There is Only Team Katniss

Jamie asked me, "Have you finished 'Mockingjay' yet? What do you think of the ending?" And it reminded me that I had to get some fandom stuff off my chest, even if I probably have unpopular opinions and, in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter.

Don't worry, I tried to make this blog entry as spoiler-free as possible.

First, let's get the "you're a snob / you're a loser" bits out of the way first. I'm late to the "Hunger Games" party. When the books first came out years ago, I avoided them for two reasons: they were only available in hardback, and there was a blurb by an author I dislike on the cover. Worse, I only decided to finally pick the books up after seeing the trailer for the movie.

That this should bother anyone is kind of ridiculous, but I know it would have bothered 15-year-old book snob me, who was livid at the sight of other girls reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone," only then, and with a cartoony-looking edition cover to boot. So, if you're one of those people who thinks I can't *understand* the books because I didn't read them first, you might not like what I have to say next.

I really, really, really, enjoyed the books, but I just don't get this Team Peeta / Team Gale stuff. For me, there is only Team Katniss.

Unlike that other popular contemporary YA book/film series with a female protagonist apparently torn between two guys, the "Hunger Games" books are not really about a love triangle but about survival. Team Peeta vs. Team Gale is really just a side attraction to Team Katniss vs. Team Government. And I'd go as far as to say that anyone who thinks the series is about the love teams is missing the point. This, IMHO, is why:

1. Katniss says, repeatedly, that she does not want to get married and have children. Having children means the possibility of seeing them off to the Hunger Games, where they will probably die like every child contestant from her district for the last 20+ years.

2. Katniss is too busy with the day-to-day task of making sure her family doesn't starve to worry about getting a boyfriend. While her best friend and hunting partner Gale is apparently a six-foot-plus beefcake, her thought processes suggest that she's avoided thinking of him as anything more mainly because of #1.

But, why go with what her thoughts merely "suggest?" She says outright in the first book that there's never been anything romantic between them. If Katniss and Gale came from Filipino families, she'd probably have called him "kuya" (older brother) all those years. She doesn't see him as anything else until he presents himself to her as something else. I can't really think of any other reason a sophomore spending all that time in the woods with a cool senior wouldn't be all, "OMG!? Does he like me or like-like me?!"

3. Everything Katniss does during and immediately after the deadly Hunger Games, even the parts involving the charming Peeta, is to stay alive. Sure, she acknowledges that she's come to care about "the boy with the bread," but she doesn't really have time to think about how deeply that care might or might not go. For the most part, she's thinking, "Try not to die now, work out my feelings later — if there is a later." She says as much in the "I can't care about him because I might have to kill him" and the "separate out my feelings" parts of the first book.

And when you think about it, reason #3 is the main reason Katniss doesn't pick a guy until long after the action ends in the last book, "Mockingjay." As cheesy as this sounds, before she can decide who to love, she has to decide whether to love at all. It's a huge risk for her; nearly everyone she cares about can be (and is) threatened, used, tortured, and/or killed by the government.

Then there's the fact that she's undergone a great deal of trauma herself. She would like to be left alone so that she can feel like a human being again, yet the movement she didn't mean to start demands that she be their leader. A person like that just isn't up to be anyone's girlfriend at the moment.

When, in the middle of all the action, she does seem to lean toward one guy or another (notably during that "drunk" moment in "Mockingjay"), it's not an, "OMG we're so made for each other," strings-sunsets-roses moment. She's a damaged, confused person looking for a new way to deal with her loss.

All this is why it takes years for Katniss to finally be able to love someone, and when she does, it's for the right reason. It's also with a good person — maybe the right person, maybe the wrong person, but still a good person who loves and is lovable. Maybe it's anticlimactic or not very romantic, but given the things she and her loved ones have suffered, it's still a lot better than she could ever have hoped for.

So, did I like the series? Sure, parts of the plot could have been tighter, especially in "Mockingjay," but yes, I enjoyed the "Hunger Games" experience as a whole. I was on Team Katniss.

--

If you do ask me about the love triangle, though, I'm on Team Peeta. Brooding ranters are overrated.

The Better Story: Notes on Agnosticism and "Life of Pi"

I've been meaning to write down some thoughts about faith, religion, and "Life of Pi," by Yann Martel but haven't gotten around to it until now. I'm going to discuss the ending and twist of the book, though, so I suggest you stop reading now if you don't want to get spoiled.

Davita and me (plus Pi)

It's a great comfort to meet people whose experience of faith is something you can relate to, even if they're fictional characters.

Last week, I finished my mom's Christmas gift to me, "Davita's Harp," by Chaim Potok. Apart from the children's book, "The Tree of Here," this is is the only book by Mr. Potok I have read, but considering how much I liked both books, I might have to check out the ones on my mom's shelf when I go home.

[image source]

"Davita's Harp" is what I like to call a plainsong kind of novel, after "Plainsong," by Kent Haruf. These are the kinds of books that don't really follow the mountain-shaped beginning-middle-climax-resolution curve. Instead, they feel like a long, leisurely stroll with a friend from one end of a wide field (or plain) to the other. The field may have a few hills, but nothing abrupt; walking over these hills feels natural, and your friend talks about life and memory to help pass the time.

For this reason, books like these are easy to dismiss as "dragging" and even "boring;" like any real friendship, they require a good first impression and then some commitment. It's a good thing "Davita's Harp" was well-written and thus rewarding.

In this book, the friend is the titular character, Ilana Davita Chandal, a grade-school girl growing up in Depression-era New York and trying to make sense of her parents' politics, religion, and the Spanish Civil War overseas.

Davita's background is a bit mixed up. Michael, her American journalist father, comes from a conservative Episcopalian family but has stopped practicing his religion and is a Communist (it is not clear which happened first, or even whether he is agnostic or an atheist). Except for his sister Sarah, a devout missionary nurse, and one odd uncle, Michael's family has cut off all contact with him because of his (un)beliefs.

Davita's mother Anne, meanwhile, is a social worker, Polish immigrant, and former Orthodox Jew. She becomes a Communist only after getting to know Michael and is also a scholar in her own right. But, she has long despised all religion after surviving her father's abuse and neglect, the horror of the pogroms in Europe, and torture by Cossacks.

Both Anne and Michael are active members of the Communist party in the US and often go to or host meetings.

In the middle of all this is Davita, of course, who, partly as a result of her parents' leanings, and partly just because she's a smart girl, has plenty of books to read, plenty of curiosity, and more awareness of what's going on in the world than most children her age—yet her experience of world events are still definitely a child's.

The titular harp is a door harp at the entrance to the different apartments that the Chandal family inhabits (for vague, likely political reasons, they never stay in one place for too long). The harp strings ping whenever someone enters or exits the home, but over time, they signal the comings and goings of the people in Davita's life.

This is what a door harp looks like. [image source]

Though Davita has no religious upbringing, she is curious about the faith of the people around her: her Aunt Sarah, who prays fervently to Jesus; her next-door neighbor and playmate Ruthie, whose family is piously Jewish; her cousin David, whose mother's recent death has him reciting a mourner's kaddish daily for eleven months; and the writer Jakob Daw, who has no religion but whose stories involve quests for meaning.

Davita also has an early sense of religion as a possible component of one's identity; when neighborhood gang members threaten to beat her for being a Jew, her father's non-Jewish status has everyone confused—"So, what are you?"—and they let her pass, for now.

What I like about Davita's growing faith is that it seems to grow naturally. Mr. Potok does not actually explain why she is drawn to religion, so we are left to come up with our own reasons, or even to project our own experiences of faith onto her. Perhaps she wants something to fill her time alone, because her parents, loving as they are, must go out and make a living or serve the party. Perhaps she is looking for some kind of center amid all the moving from apartment to apartment. Perhaps she seeks a sense of order under the atmosphere of war and chaos. Perhaps she wants solace from grief and abandonment. Perhaps she is drawn to the religious community and the possibility of friends and family with a shared interest.

Perhaps it is all these things, or perhaps there is no one reason. Davita says nothing at all about any experience of a God drawing her near—yet we are free to believe that this may be it—we just know that she's following her heart. And sure, there are some people who try to convert Davita one way or another, but in the end, she goes to the synagogue because it feels like the right place to be, even if she doesn't understand what the rituals are about. She begins to kneel with her Christian aunt in prayer, even if Davita herself doesn't believe in Jesus, because it somehow feels right.

And because Davita follows her heart when it comes to faith, she doesn't meekly accept every teaching or custom as-is. She wonders why women must remain separate from the men in the synagogue. When someone close to her dies in the Guernica bombing (the Picasso painting has a huge effect on her when she sees it in person), she feels compelled to recite the mourner's kaddish, though Orthodox custom seems to discourage women from doing so.

When Davita transfers into the yeshiva, the Jewish religious school, she challenges her teachers' literal interpretations of the ancient Hebrew texts and researches an unorthodox theologian on her own. When religious authorities further discriminate against her because of her sex, she begins to understand how a single event can change a person overnight; the novel suggests that feminism may yet become Davita's cause, just as socialism was her parents'.

It is extremely refreshing to read about someone else finding faith without having the author spell out what is leading them. Nor does it seem as though Mr. Potok is imposing an unorthodox or feminist agenda. The characters arrive at their respective conclusions because that is how rational yet fallible human beings arrive at their conclusions. I think Mr. Potok's writing thus respects the nature of faith as personal and definitive yet only partially explicable.

Of course, I may be biased, as I experienced religion in much the same way Davita did. I never took the Bible literally and saw it as a literary compilation, even as a child. I had and still have a lot of questions. Many of those questions—as well as a core idea of the kind of god that the Abrahamic god must be, to be truly God—have led me to disagree with a lot of the things taught in or prescribed by the churches I've attended, including the one I attend now. Like Davita, I have little to say today about a personal experience of a God. And yet, for reasons I can't really explain, I believe in and pray to One.

I recommend "Davita's Harp" to anyone else with similar experiences, anyone who knows someone with similar experiences, anyone with a general interest in faith and religion, and anyone who likes a good plainsong novel (try "Certain Women," by Madeleine L'Engle, too).

[image source]

The other day, I started "Life of Pi," by Yann Martel. I'm just at the part where the boat has sunk, but so far, I've enjoyed Pi's adolescent exploration and acceptance of Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. I especially admire Pi's desire to be a Christian despite his hangups about how avatar-Jesus-as-sacrifice is supposed to work. It doesn't make sense to him (it doesn't make sense to me, either), and yet he knows that there is something good there.

I know conservatives may paint poly-religious Pi as a superstitious, fearful boy trying to cover all the bases for his salvation. But, I'd agree with Pi that he simply sees these three religions as different ways to commune with the one God he loves. One could argue and nitpick all day about how incompatible these religions may be with one another, but ultimately, I think faith and its practice is what we make it.

Heaven for the Devil in Me

I don't talk often about music because there isn't a lot that I like. During my pre-Internet childhood, the music that found its way to local radio stations was not as varied and, shall we say, "cool" as the music my capital-based peers have in their libraries. Let's just say that Nine Days and Enya were about as far out of the mainstream as you could get, and nobody had a clue how great Bjork really was (But, could you blame us? The "Hunter" video had us all scratching our heads).

So whenever I heard something that I liked, cool or uncool, I latched onto it and, given my music landscape, only it—as an angry teenager, "The Madding Crowd" was the only album I ever played at full blast behind my locked door. The music I loved, I loved fiercely, perhaps because it felt like it had made such a long journey to present itself to me.

I don't know whether it's just the way I am, just my age (the other day, some high schooler on the radio didn't know the words to "Don't Speak"), or actually the way many people really are, but this is still how I acquire music today. Having access now to the immense volume of music out in the world actually makes it even harder for me to find a musician or band that strikes that magic chord inside my tiny little body.

The good music, I've found, tells me a story, and the better music makes me feel like the hero, whether that story's happy or sad. I guess that's kind of escapist, but whose daydreams aren't?

The best music, however, makes me feel capable of anything, right here, right now.

And all that's just to say that I can't get enough of "Ceremonials" by Florence + the Machine.

Sometime last year, I heard "What the Water Gave Me." I had just wrapped myself around Flo's first album, "Lungs," and I was a little afraid of what she was going to do next. The new song took me back to all the afternoons I spent holding my breath under the water, training myself to dive 15 feet without a tank. It felt like my dreams of flying—and when I dream of flying, I feel and move like I'm swimming.

Then, the day before I went home for the All Souls holiday, about two months after my breakup, I heard "Shake It Out," and I just knew that this whole album would be everything I needed to hear.

I finally bought it—bought it!—on Monday, and I haven't been able to stop listening to it. Every damn song makes me feel like I could win a war, even if that war's just with myself.

Heartlines


[image source]

I wish I could go on, but I have to dash off now to meet my dad and brother; we're hiking around Taal Volcano tomorrow. \m/

Life feels awesome right now.

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Like the new layout? I do. The old one was a little painful to look at. Have a good weekend, everybody.

New Books I Read in 2011

Before I get on with the list, some notes.

• Not all of these books were released this year; by "new," I mean that I read them for the first time this year.
• I'm not even sure if this list is accurate. I only started with "Never Let Me Go" because I know I received it last Christmas. I can't seem to get Shelfari to show me exactly when I added the books.
• I'm a little disappointed that I didn't read a lot more this year. Maybe I'll be able to squeeze in one or two more books before 2012 comes.

And now, the list.

1. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. A Christmas gift from my grandmother. Really beautiful story, made me cry.
   
   Also, it is not a little painful to read about the death throes of a young couple's life together when you are constantly asking yourself whether you are in the death throes of a young couple's life together.
   
   
2. The Joys of Love, by Madeleine L'Engle. Another Christmas gift, this one from my mother. It's Ms. L'Engle's first novel, posthumously published by her granddaughters. I found it a refreshingly simple, happy look at what it was like for one of my favorite authors to be a young writer and actress.
   
   
3. Certain Women, by Madeleine L'Engle. Another gift from Mom. It might be a little dry for some people, but I loved all the theater and Biblical references, as well as the way Ms. L'Engle wrote about this family.
   
   
4. Betty Crocker's Microwave Cookbook. Ha.
   
   
5. I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak. I loved it until I got to the ending. What a cop-out.
   
   
6. Mercury, by Hope Larson. My expectations were high for this Eisner winner, so I was a little disappointed with the simplistic story. Good art, premise, and choice of themes, though.
   
   
7. Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. My gift to Martin. I sort of wanted to take it back after I read it, haha. I really enjoyed the whole investigation into apophenia.
   
   Yes, that was my favorite word for a few weeks.
   
   
8. For the Win, by Cory Doctorow. I've actually ranted about this here and here.
   
   
9.  Art & Max, by David Wiesner. Visually exuberant, like a Pixar short with words.
   
   
10. Just Being Audrey, by Margaret Cardillo. A tribute to the Hollywood icon that also serves to introduce her to young readers. I think the illustrations captured the poise, charm, and lightness that fans have ascribed to Ms. Hepburn.
    
    
11. A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan. Just awesome.
    
    
12. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. Also awesome. I generally love stories about the world after human civilization, so it was great to get a National Geographic kind of look at how it would happen.
    
    Before the book, Mr. Weisman wrote this article on the same subject; it should give you an idea.
    
    
13. The Major Plays, by Anton Chekhov. <3
    
    
14. The Diaries of Adam and Eve, by Mark Twain. The writing's a little sexist, but I love the sheer joy Eve feels as she explores the newly-made world. Adam's such a fuddy-duddy.
    
    
15. A Song of Ice and Fire, series, by George R. R. Martin. It's not going to win any Pulitzers, but I'm so invested in the characters now. Sansa Stark for the win.
    
    
16. The Animal Family, by Randall Jarrell. A wonderfully weird fairy tale. The decorations by Maurice Sendak are a huge bonus.
    
    
17. And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer. I also reviewed this here.
    
    
18. The Red Tree, by Shaun Tan. I read this shortly before the breakup. It helped before and after the breakup. I will probably gravitate to this book and anything by Shaun Tan whenever I feel really sad. If someone you know is sad, give them this book.
    
    
19. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I'd heard about this book on and off for several years, but I'll admit, I only finally picked it up after I'd read that Emma Watson had been cast as the girl. I know. Bad reader, bad, bad. But the book was good, good.
    
    
20. Blankets, by Craig Thompson. Relatable and sweet.
    
    
21. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks. If someone had told me ten years ago that neurology was where it's at, I'd be in med school right now. Instead, I have to content myself with the tales of Oliver Sacks.
    
    
22. Love Wins, by Rob Bell. Not very well-written, but still moving and thoughtful. It was nice to feel someone within the evangelical establishment (well, as far in as the liberal upstart Mr. Bell got, anyway) reaching out to doubters like me.
    
    
23. Clockwork, by Philip Pullman. At once chilling and sweet, like several Grimms' tales woven together.
    
    
24. Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon. Having read #15 put me in the mood for something like this, and Mr. Chabon did not disappoint. There's historical interest as well as solid swashbuckling.
    
    It was also the first Chabon book I ever read, but the self-stroking afterword has made me hesitant to read any other.
    
    
25. Over to You, by Roald Dahl. Exquisite stories about being in the Royal Air Force during WWII. Also, madness.
    
    
26. The History of Luminous Motion, by Scott Bradfield. The macabre, lyrical, at times drug-addled bildungsroman of a frighteningly precocious eight-year-old sociopath. Hacksaws are involved.
    
    
27. Delirium's Party, A Little Endless Storybook, by Jill Thompson. A little too cutesie, but I loved the illustrations.
    
    

Next time, books I hope to read next year.

Notes on Owning a Bike

The first thing I learned about owning a folding bike was that folding bikes are still heavy. I got one of the bigger ones with 18-inch wheels and six speeds because smaller wheels with less or single speeds meant more pedaling for the same price.* But now I'll have to build up the strength in my arms if I ever plan on hauling the bike to an LRT platform.**

The second thing I learned was that you need confidence and good reflexes to ride a bike in the city. My grandmother's house in Makati, where I stayed this past weekend, is in a relatively quiet neighborhood in arguably the most orderly city in Metro Manila. Biking around there on Saturday afternoon was a delight, but crossing one of the few busy streets was kind of an ordeal.

Where I live in Cubao is not so quiet, the streets are much busier, and the streets and sidewalks, as I learned yesterday afternoon, aren't so great, so my ride around was kind of frightening. I've complained about motorists not wanting to give way to pedestrians on foot; apparently, they're even less willing to give way to people on bicycles, and they honk at you like you're an idiot.

The third thing I learned—another reason I need confidence, really—was that males aren't used to seeing females on bikes. If in my previous post I wondered why female bikers are so rare, it might be partly due to this. It's really creepy to be watched while you walk down the street, but today, it seemed that guys paid even more attention as I passed on a bike. I actually felt more uncomfortable and vulnerable than I ever did on foot. The only consolation was that having wheels allowed me to get away even faster.

My plan after buying the bike was to return to Cubao partway by bike and partway by train, but for all the above reasons, I took a cab from Makati with my new bike safely folded in the backseat. I feel ridiculous and kind of defeated right now.

I don't want to be cowed, though. The first part of my plan now is to take practice rides each weekend to build up both my confidence and my stamina, and to get used to biking in the city. The sight of people commuting on bikes along major thoroughfares like E. Rodriguez Jr. Ave. and Pasong Tamo**** helped encourage me to finally get my bike; though the riders were all male, they showed me that it could be done.

I'll bike around my neighborhood for the first couple of weeks, then see if I can make it as far as Katipunan, then try for my office one Saturday.

The second part of my plan is to move to a nicer neighborhood first quarter of next year.*** That might mean living farther from work and definitely biking only on weekends, but after two years on this side of Aurora Boulevard, I've had enough. I need someplace where guys just don't leer at girls, whether they're on two legs or two wheels.

* Mikko and I visited every shop in that row along Quezon Boulevard, across the Quiapo church, plus that one shop near J. Ruiz Station where he got his unicycle. (Yes, my brother bought a unicycle.) The average lowest price for a folding bike, regardless of size or number of speeds, was around P3,500. Even the secondhand ones I saw cost roughly P3,000.

Before going to Quiapo, I'd gone to this one shop on E. Rodriguez Jr., where the shop boy first ignored me, then grinned stupidly at me the whole time I asked questions. He told me that the cheapest folding bike was P4,800. It looked old and unstable, and the look on the guy's face told me that I wouldn't get any respect from this shop. Don't go there, friends. Check out any of the shops in Quiapo, where they treated me like a valuable customer. I got my bike, new and still in its packing, at Global Craze.

** LRT2 is the only train line I know to allow passengers to take bicycles on board, and the bikes have to be folding. That and the general lack of storage space in all the places I've lived in the past seven years were what led me to seek a folding bike instead of one of those prettier and cheaper road bikes.

*** I've harped on my awful neighborhood and slimy neighbors since the day I moved here, but I've delayed moving again for the following reasons, in chronological order: too rattled by recent changes to uproot myself again, unable to afford a better place, hoping the attention stops bothering me in time, waiting for brother to decide whether he wants to share an apartment with me, and waiting for salary to be fixed. That last won't be till February, so I'll just have to put up with the jerks on the street a little while longer.

**** This morning, instead of taking a jeepney, I walked from my house to EDSA to study the roads, traffic, and people on bikes. It seems easy enough to bike on Aurora Boulevard; even with heavy traffic, bikes and motorbikes can stay safely to one side of the road and still squeeze past the four-wheelers. Crossing EDSA was another matter, but there was one biker did it. I felt like clapping my hands.

And Another Book

"And Another Thing..." is the sixth book in Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy, written by Eoin Colfer of "Artemis Fowl" fame.

While I support fanfiction for fun, for some reason, I don't usually like the idea of someone picking up where the author left off, even if it's authorized (in this case, Mr. Adams's widow Jane Belson gave the okay). I guess I'm generally skeptical that whatever the new guy/girl does won't really measure up to the original.

This was the case with Mr. Colfer's continuation of one of my favorite book series—but it doesn't mean I didn't have a good time. Once I got over my own disdain a few pages in, I was reconnecting with characters I loved, and the storyline itself was definitely something Mr. Adams might have cooked up himself.

I have only two complaints, really, though they're related.

First, some of the characters had out-of-character moments. For instance, the series' hero Arthur kept feeling really concerned about his daughter Random. The last time I'd seen him, he was still coming to terms with the fact that he had a daughter at all, and any actions out of fatherly concern were very self-conscious—I barely know this kid who showed up on my doorstep. I'm not even sure that I like her, much less love her. For goodness's sake, she throws rocks at me. I'm only trying to connect with her / save her life because it seems like something a dad would do, but I still have to get my head around the idea that I'm a dad at all.

When he's not freaking out about something weird and spacey, and before and after Fenchurch, Arthur's default emotion is the kind of stoicism one assumes because you know that actually freaking out will only cause you even more discomfort. The way I see it, his disconnect from his daughter is partly rooted in this default mode, and partly out of the fact that he barely knows her. In this new book, though, Mr. Colfer has Arthur moaning about being about to lose his daughter half the time—hardly a week after they first met.

It might be something to do with the psychological effects of travelling through dark space*, but then Arthur spent most of that journey chatting to the computer simulation of his lost love Fenchurch, and his post - dark space epiphany had more to do with moving on from his heartbreak than it did being a good father. He spends barely any time with Random at all in this book, so the moments where he suddenly acts very fatherly feel very superficial.

Second, there's not enough Arthur to begin with. Arthur is my favorite character in the series because he's an everyman. I'd like to be Trillian the astrophysicist-turned-journalist or Fenchurch the ordinary but sweet—the only female characters who undergo anything resembling character development in the series—but it's Arthur I want to succeed, Arthur I want to find roots in a strange galaxy after losing his home planet, Arthur I want to finally have a decent cup of tea.

"And Another Thing..." gives most of the action to the other characters. These characters are less ordinary, and their choices have always propelled the story more than Arthur's, but at least Arthur was usually around to give me the lost Earthling's perspective on some of these events. This time, whatever happens to Arthur kind of just bookends the plot, and I feel the book might have been better had Mr. Colfer written more for him.

That said, I did enjoy the book, and it was funny. I'd still recommend it to other H2G2 fans with the it's-not-Adams-but-it's-fine reservations.

Also, Arthur wasn't the only character I rooted for; do keep an eye out for "utter bastard" Constant Mown.

--
* "For a being of light, gazing even for a moment into the heart of dark space has an effect equivalent to a dozen near-death experiences. It's the Universe's way of telling you to get on with your life. Which is a good thing if the feeling budding in a person's heart is a good feeling." – Chapter 9, "And Another Thing...", by Eoin Colfer

30 Days of Books: Days 8-14

I've decided to break this meme into chunks lest the later days get buried under my usual walls of text. Here we go with Days 8-14:

30 Days of Books

I found this 30 DAYS of BOOKS meme through fellow Heights alumna Fidelis Tan and thought it would be fun. I'm not very updated when it comes to the "cool" or "highly acclaimed" stuff, so this list might be kind of dull for book snobs, but hey, I'm just sharing what I've got.

Quality of Book Report

On Saturday, I decided to read what was left of the book I'd cut for my last OA project, Meghan Daum's "The Quality of Life Report".

There was enough left for me to understand the story and not feel like I'd missed anything, but to be honest, I'm not too sad now that I cut the book. It was all right, and funny in parts, making what I guess America calls a decent "beach read." I still didn't like the protagonist very much, nor the end at which the book arrived.

Lucinda Trout is a TV producer from New York who, after an assignment in Prairie City, decides to relocate there in the hopes of discovering that easier, slower-paced farm life, apparently the fantasy of many harried city dwellers.

I might be the wrong person to write a review of this book, maybe because I did the opposite by leaving my own quiet province for Metro Manila, maybe because my priorities are vastly different from Lucinda's, or maybe because she's American. If Ms. Daum's objective was to write "Moving to a Small Town, You're Doing it Wrong," I guess she succeeded, but she didn't make Lucinda someone I could root for in the process.

Observe.

- Lucinda leaving New York for Prairie City and thinking of the latter as a sleepy hick town is way off, based on the kind of lifestyle she's able to sustain. In the beginning, she made Prairie City out to be something like the isolated farm town of Holt, Colorado in Kent Haruf's "Plainsong", or worse, someplace with few phone or power lines and maybe no running water. But it's more like she moved from Metro Manila to General Santos, where the malls, businesses both local and franchised, and landscaped central park are enough to tell you you're far from the middle of nowhere.

- Lucinda's first friends are the community leaders, possibly elites, who change cars every year and own a big house with a pool in the backyard. Most of her encounters with people from lower income brackets are when she interviews/exploits people for her show and when she's in line at the local supermarket.

- She's kind of stupid with her money. Knowing that her pay-per-used-segment income will likely be inconsistent, one of the first things she does is get a co-branded credit card for a furniture store. "Oh, I might not be earning enough money. Rather than budget wisely and try to save, I'm going to get myself into debt to support my need for interior design! Yay, eggplant door panels!" Kaya nagka-financial crisis sa States, e.

- She then springs, not for a modest studio or a little cabin, but for a huge apartment in a suburban area and all this Martha Stewart-type junk to decorate it.

- She does this a second time, for a more expensive place, with her new boyfriend whose own money goes to child support for his three kids.

- The new place is isolated and sort of a farm, but she doesn't know how to take care of it. She's helpless without the boyfriend around to play the brawny farmhand.

- She buys a car. Sure, it's secondhand, but doesn't this place have a bus system?

- When she gets depressed, she blows more money on tanning and fake nails. I thought the point of moving to the country was to find inner peace by living off the land. She could at least have planted a vegetable garden.

In the end (SPOILER ALERT?), Lucinda realizes that instead of truly improving her quality of life, she's deluded herself into thinking that she can get her rural fantasy without actually working for it. It's a great moral, sure, but I just feel like there could have been less shallow, less obvious ways for her to learn it.

There's also a disturbing, second conclusion (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT?) to Lucinda's tale, which I think she touches on but kind of chickens out of exploring: it's people who experience inertia, not cities. The inertia she experienced as a New Yorker too complacent to leave her highly urbanized cocoon is not unlike the inertia that sucks the people of Prairie City into the ground. In a similar vein, the concerns and conversations had by her giggly girlfriends and bitchy employer in New York are just as absurd as those of the Prairie City socialites who surround her.

Maybe this is the main reason I don't like Lucinda's story. She thinks she's changed into a better person, but really, it's not by much. Fast life, slow life--it doesn't matter if you don't actually go anywhere.

Whiteout-popup Quality of Life Report

Two months ago, I saw this post by Adam David (possibly NSFW) calling for blackout poem / "visual erasure" contributions. I thought it might be a good exercise for my popup buildings, as well as to maybe work out my love-hate relationship with the city while telling a story.

I missed the "Erase Erase" deadline, though, so I decided to just post the work here. Click on each thumbnail to enlarge (they're arranged in order from left to right, like a regular book; filenames are numbered if you're confused).

Just some notes, which you don't have to read.

It was harder than I thought, to pick something that was inexpensive even for Booksale (P45), had the right title, at first glance held the kinds of words I was seeking, and, most importantly, wouldn't feel like a huge loss once I started cutting out pages. Meghan Daum's "The Quality of Life Report" fit the bill more than anything else I saw (I ended up buying more than one book that day) because the blurb on the back made it sound like the kind of sweetly cheesy, "I'm Reed Fish"-type of story that I'd probably catch on Star Movies during off seasons.

This is probably blasphemy to any book-lover, but I didn't even read the book before cutting into it. The deadline was pretty close, and I haven't had a lot of time to read; the last thing I read, I finished last week but bought in late February. I did end up reading the cut pages, though, and I felt bad afterward. It did sound like an interesting and well-written story after all. So, if you ever read this, Ms. Daum, please accept my sincerest apologies, as well as a promise to buy your book if I ever see another copy in a local store. Your other book sounds interesting as well.

How I made it: I chose the words first, sliced out those pages, and sketched the buildings and skylines I wanted to put over/under them. The buildings themselves didn't take more than two or three hours to plot and cut for each spread, if you don't count the spreads discarded for wrong measurements or cuts. I used black crayon on the parts of the book page that would show up behind the buildings, then glued the pages onto the back while trying to get the words to line up with the windows before the glue* dried.

In the end, though, work and other things took up my time, and I finished the last spread just on Sunday. The photos and layout (if you can call it that) were done this morning after I woke up. I desaturated everything on my computer because my camera's white balance was acting funny.

The whole project was fun but also tiring in that I kept coming up against my own lack of imagination for these buildings. Now that I'm aware of it, though, I'll keep trying to come up with more interesting things in the future.

--
*Boring notes about glue: Elmer's white glue comes in the easiest bottle to work with, but God help you if your paper's not perfectly aligned when you stick it on; this stuff dries fast. Elmer's "school" blue glue gives you time to push the paper into place before it dries, but if you use too much, some parts of the paper will look permanently wet and dark. Locally made Sti-Kee (?) glue works the same way without the wet look, but the bottle is a pain to work with because some idiot thought a glue "spreader" next to the nozzle was a good idea, when really, it just gets in the way of everything. The glue's also so thick that it comes out of the bottle in globs instead of a neat line.

FTW? Eh. (end-book review)

The prediction I made at the end of my last post was true: I was just a few pages away from when things got exciting, and I had to keep reading until the end. However, I think I'll stand by my original declaration that this is Mr. Doctorow's worst novel ever.

"For the Win" lacks the depth I've come to expect from the author. Certain events designed to make a reader feel a certain way fell flat and felt unnecessary to me. After a while, I felt like I was watching a so-so TV series with a forced cliffhanger at the end of each episode, put in not necessarily to add to the story, but to just keep the audience interested.

In that sense, certain characters' deaths were also unnecessary. The first one didn't have to happen as the larger event it was part of was horrific enough. I kind of think this one was put in just to make two other characters cry.

The second one was even more melodramatic, and the inspiration it was supposed to lend to everyone else felt superficial; the others were already operating on their own and would have kept going even if this character hadn't died. No need to pass a baton they were already holding. (I realize that this was kind of the author's point, but he didn't have to make it this way. Already, the others were on their way to the big meeting without this character; this one could simply have receded into the background and happily let things take on a life of their own.)

I'm not saying that just because I was attached to the characters because, again, it was hard to feel deeply attached to any of the characters.  Despite their importance, they still fell in the lower half of the meaningful death scale of redshirt to Sirius Black.

All that said, "FTW" has its good points. I liked the interludes where Mr. Doctorow explained certain economic concepts; I now have a better handle on inflation and shady financial deals than I ever did in school or looking stuff up on Investopedia (though it's still a pretty good resource).

I also liked the author's eye and ear for local color and culture. I like how he captured everyday life and the background sights and sounds in each place (Mumbai, Singapore, Shenzhen, California, etc.) without exoticizing any of it.

For all my complaints about characterization, it's also nice to see his brand of strong female characters: smart, resourceful girls who serve as important additions to the story, not just as the token chick in the ragtag team.

My closing statement? I probably wouldn't read this again, but with an intriguing premise and the huge potential for a diverse cast, I'd line up for tickets if it got adapted for a smart summer blockbuster.

FTW? WTF. (mid-book review)

I'm now in the third act of Cory Doctorow's "For the Win," and I have to say that this is probably his worst novel so far.

After reading most of them before this one, plus several of his short stories, it's safe to say that I have a handle on his style and his favorite themes. "Outsider bucks the system" is a theme that nearly everyone loves, but what's special about Mr. Doctorow's work is that he chooses systems that people overlook, take for granted, or discount completely--things we are only vaguely aware of and not very interested in learning, at least till it makes the headlines. The politics of running a Disney theme park? What entrepreneurship will look like within five years started to look like beginning sometime in '09? Workers' strikes and the economies of MMORPGs?

I couldn't have told you that I cared much about any of these things before reading Mr. Doctorow's novels. And I wouldn't have cared if he hadn't been so good at showing us just how plausible--no, real some of these situations can be. We're probably still at least 30 years away from being able to download ourselves into clones after we die, as in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," but the idea of esteem/coolness someday functioning as a currency and being online all the time already makes sense in the age of the Internet. This country's security protocols are nowhere near TSA levels, but anyone who learned anything about the Marcos regime can grasp that the horrific government abuse in "Little Brother" could happen here if our leaders were smart about it. The power of bloggers among the media, the arrival of 3D printers, and what Limor Fried did with the Xbox tells me that Mr. Doctorow was nothing short of prophetic with "Makers."

I've realized, however, that plausibility is only half, maybe one third of what's made me enjoy Mr. Doctorow's work so far. His first and most fantastic, far-fetched work, "Down and Out," was built around a (dare I say old-fashioned?) conspiracy and murder mystery. I cared as much about finding out who killed the protagonist and how he was going to save the theme park from total reinvention as I did about what it would be like to have a spliced girlfriend from outer space.

I cared about the protagonist, period, and I wanted to be on his side. I wanted to be on the side of all Mr. Doctorow's protagonists because, even though they sometimes bordered on the Marty Stu*, they cared about their work and their freedom, as any human being should.

The problem with "For the Win," which tackles the age-old problem of workers' rights in the world of online games like Ragnarok and World of Warcraft, is that I don't really care about the protagonists. I almost wish that plausibility was a problem, but because I've actually tried a few MMORPGs, I'm free to focus entirely on the characters and their problems, and they don't excite me.

Some might say that it's because there are too many of them. I say having many characters shouldn't be a problem if they are memorable and their conflicts are compelling. I don't really mind when an author jumps from character to character and scene to scene if he or she maintains the feeling that they all have a connecting thread--and I suppose that's what Mr. Doctorow wanted to do: show that labor problems affect all workers everywhere, even online.

The trouble is, neither the characters nor the scenes in "FTW" feel very fleshed out. And while it's not hard for me to keep track of what's happened so far to whom, there are significant gaps between scenes, so I feel somewhat cheated.

For instance, my favorite character was Mala, the Indian schoolgirl and gaming general from the slums. Her resourcefulness and inner strength made her a breath of fresh air in a sea of shy, male gamer geeks, and of all the characters, she experienced the most dramatic, character-shaping ups and downs. Mala was torn between earning the money that helped uplift her family's condition and her desire to get out from under her boss's thumb. Given her independent spirit, I believed it was only a matter of time before the union won her over to their side.

Several scenes later, she's working against the union and threatening to burn the whole slum down with a petrol bomb. What? What?! Without any explanation, this just seems horribly out of character. This girl beat up her own would-be rapist. Her hunger for justice and equality is just mounting and mounting with every scene. What happened to break her great spirit? When did she become so cynical? I'd love to hear the answers, but because Mr. Doctorow's now telling the slum storyline from Mala's best friend's point of view, I don't think I'm going to get them. The next time I see Mala, she's seen the light, but the disservice to her character has already been done.

As for the scenes, I'm starting to get tired of Mr. Doctorow's "one guy explains things to another guy" or "one character's internal monologue explains things to the reader" fix. (There's no "one guy makes an inspiring speech to the group" yet--it's another of his favorite tactics--but given the worker's rights angle, it shouldn't be far behind.) The interludes where he addresses the reader directly to explain some more actually interest me more than when the characters are doing it; I almost wish he'd just written the whole thing as a long essay (but then again, maybe I wouldn't have read it).

For the first time, I actually understand what all my teachers meant by "show, don't tell." I actually think telling has its uses, and I like how story may be advanced just as well through dialogue as through action. But this is just getting boring--especially considering that I don't care very much about the people doing the talking.

Yes, people get arrested, tortured, even horribly scarred. But when the novel cuts to a scene where people are just sitting around talking and making plans, but not yet really doing anything right afterward (it's fitting that I'm writing this review in the middle of the scene where Mala's asking Ashok the economist-planner why things are taking so long), it becomes hard to care about them. It's ironic that instead of eliciting outrage over an important problem, Mr. Doctorow's done a good job of desensitizing this reader, sort of the way news outlets do--now oil price hikes, now celebrity gossip, now a corruption hearing, now a lizard that can play basketball.

So, it's Wei-Dong enjoying his inheritance. Now it's Lu and Matthew listening to rebel radio. Now it's Ashok and Yasmin talking to other union people. Now it's Connor making a bet with his co-worker. Now it's Big Sister Nor and her pals checking out of the hospital--oh, yeah, they got beat up last time. What are they going to do about it? Stay tuned, because it's Wei-Dong's turn again.

The other problem is that you'd think this kind of story would have given the Man a face by now. In "Down and Out," it was that sneaky girl who wanted to take over the theme park. In "Little Brother," it was Severe Haircut and her government goons. In "Makers," it was that guy from Disney who wanted to bust an intellectual property lawsuit on everyone's ass. But in "FTW," we just get this vague idea of corporate bigshots pulling all the strings from the shadows. Maybe Connor, the guy who works for the games and enjoys it, is supposed to be their face, but we don't actually get enough facetime with him to be reasonably scared of his power.

I know Mr. Doctorow's capable of telling a good story. "Chicken Little" was so polished and chilling that I almost couldn't believe he had written it. It's now not only my favorite work of his, but also perhaps one of my favorite stories ever. But because it's so good, I'm wondering how he could let the mess that is "FTW" pass.

Maybe it's not fair to review a book when I haven't finished it yet; maybe I'm just one scene away from where he drops the big one and turning each page is no longer a chore. Maybe "FTW" is full of win after all; there'll be a kick-ass finale, and I'll be glad I didn't give up. I'm just starting to worry that this hope is for naught--I'm well into the second half of the book and it still feels like nothing's happening. This is the first time Mr. Doctorow's produced a novel that I could put down.


* "Little Brother" and "Makers" both featured sex scenes in which one of the geeky, loveable heroes gets it on with a girl from the cause. But maybe I shouldn't complain; the girl is always smart, funny, and more sexually experienced. Nothing like this yet in "For the Win," but my money's on gamer Lu or gamer Matthew hooking up with Jie the rebel radio host.

Thoughts on "Certain Women"

I just finished Certain Women by Madeleine L'Engle. In it, a young actress, Emma Wheaton cares for her dying father David--also an actor, and a great one--who's sort of obsessed with a role that he never got to play, that of the biblical king David. Their family saga is interspersed with and often paralleled to that of the king, in turn told as the actors and playwright discuss how each scene should be written.

It sounds like a cheesy TV movie waiting to be made, but I hope I can assure you that it is not. Still, it is also not many things that people tend to look for in books these days.

Ms. L'Engle's prose is very understated, and her pace is gentle; some might say slow, but I'm not one of them. I mean, you can't really expect some gripping thriller when most of the action takes place at dinner tables at the end of the day and on an old man's boat in the lonely Pacific Northwest (which, now that I've read about it, I'd like to visit). Instead, I think the author's own background in the theater shows in the way she lets the story and characters reveal themselves through dialogue and reflection.

This may be a failing in that it sometimes sounds as if the character is only talking so that the author can get everything out there--again, like in plays. One of my favorite scenes, in which Emma and several of her half-siblings (both Davids had many wives) gather around the piano and discuss an absent brother, sounds like this at certain points.

But I'd also like to believe that in those days, (the 1930s-60s), people actually talked to one another like that. In the end, I also feel that I know more about the characters than they actually said, which I always think is a good thing. And even if some characters don't get more than a few lines (and most don't get much physical description) I also like the feeling that I know who each character is--considering the number of wives and children each David had, this is something. Her characters are human, flawed and in some ways desperate, and if they are flat in some ways, the author actually admits it at one point.

I will say that the buildup to the one violent scene in the book wasn't subtle enough; from the moment Ms. L'Engle first dropped a hint that it was going to happen, I knew who was going to do what to whom. Was it intentional? It does make me wonder how the victim walked so blindly into it, but perhaps like me, who once gave my phone number to not one but two creepy strangers who asked, this person wanted to assume the best about the villain.

I will also say that the way the scene was written was cheesy and has probably been used to write such scenes a thousand times before. I hope it doesn't make the crime any less brutal.

Because Ms. L'Engle goes back and forth between Emma's story and the Bible story of King David, one might assume that she's being preachy. It's easy to assume this given how Ms. L'Engle weaves her faith into nearly everything she's written (or at least everything of hers I've read*), but I think making this assumption is wrong. Throughout the book, Ms. L'Engle shows just how open to interpretation a Bible story can be. It's definitely worth noting that many of the discussions about the king, his wives, the prophets, and God's likely intentions are held by an Episcopalian, a Baptist, their somewhere-in-between-granddaughter, an admitted adulterer who's slacked off religious practice, and the agnostic playwright. All their talk made me want to crack open Samuel I and II again to see what I might make of it for myself.

All that said, I will concede that it may not be interesting to people who aren't interested in the Bible, much less religion. It might also take some getting used to if you're not already accustomed to the way Ms. L'Engle writes about faith.

Can I tell you, though, that David's is probably one of the most gripping in that whole book? Once you get past the giant-slaying, there's still all the war, polygamy, singing, drama, prophecies, more war, and, of course, death. It's practically a soap opera--and it would probably contend for the title "All My Children."**

Anyway, I enjoyed the book. If you find it, I hope you'll at least read it.

--

*I'll admit here that I'm a L'Engle fan; here's what I've read: the whole Wrinkle in Time series, including the saling-pusa fifth book, An Acceptable Time; The Arm of the Starfish; A Ring of Endless Light; Walking on Water (non-fiction); Penguins and Golden Calves (also non-fiction); The Joys of Love; and Certain Woman. It's also kind of fun to catch Ms. L'Engle recycling; there's a conversation about Chekhov in The Joys of Love that appears again in Certain Women. I think she only reused it, though, because she assumed that Joys was never going to be published; it only came out after her death.

**Fun fact: While in the theater, Ms. L'Engle met the love of her life, actor Hugh Franklin, who would later star in "All My Children."

Think About Death and Get Sad and Stuff

(Scott Pilgrim is an unemployed 20-something who plays bass for the band Sex Bob-Omb. Its members, his friends, are also 20-somethings in dead-end jobs and with varying degrees of maturity. Scott himself thinks dating a high schooler will distract him from the baggage of his last breakup. He then finds his dream girl in Ramona but soon trips over her own baggage; he must duel to the death with her seven evil exes for their budding romance to survive.)

You don't have to be a fan of the original comics to enjoy "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." And I've discovered today that you don't have to know anything about indie music to enjoy the soundtrack.

That sounds kind of stupid and maybe even pretentious, but when it comes to music, I live under a rock. I don't watch TV or listen to the radio; if I do, it's usually whatever station the jeepney driver prefers (kailangan pa bang i-memorize iyan?). My boyfriend is more up-to-date, but he prefers hip-hop to the guitar-y, synth-y, whingy stuff on this record.

However,the currency of the Scott Pilgrim OST, its age-appropriateness in more ways than one, is precisely why I like it. Sure, I know that this hot indie stuff is what my peers are listening to, more or less, but that's only part of it. At the same time, the whole record is nostalgic. Some of the tracks--particularly both songs by Crash and the Boys--sound like something I would've enjoyed in high school. Some of them sound like they were written in any of the previous five or six decades. (In the case of "Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones and "Teenage Dream" by T. Rex, some of them were.) Then there's that 8-bit bonus track that definitely brings back memories of the classic Nintendo (or in my case, Family Computer Game) of my childhood.

Other things I can hear in there: it thinks it's mature but is really just smug, it's really frantic and in a hurry, it still clings to unrealistic ideals for relationships, and overall, it drags its feet about coming to terms with reality.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the soundtrack, especially considering that I steeped in the comics for months before the movie came out. But all in all, the whole Scott Pilgrim experience--comic, movie, and soundtrack--has been about being fully aware of how old/young I am while wishing for another time: my years of teenage ignorance, some defining previous decade I hadn't been born into, or the mellow, "real" adulthood that is to come but can't simply be skipped to. And while I don't know music, I do know that many of my friends out there feel the same way about their lives. The critics were on to something when they said that "Scott Pilgrim" was the story of a generation.

You guys. We are Sex Bob-Omb.